


The Lynches Funeral

by savagelyhandsome



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Depression, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kid Fic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Recreational Drug Use, SO, Sexual Assault, Street Racing, Wakes & Funerals, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-03 21:44:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5307950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savagelyhandsome/pseuds/savagelyhandsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Niall was murdered the Lynch family was shattered and fractured into 43 pieces. Enter stage right, Richard Gansey. A prick that Ronan would never admit is not all that awful. After moving out of the dorms Ronan went through unorthodox mourning. It showed itself through violence, self-loathing, depression, recklessness that borderlines suicidal, and hanging out with what Gansey would call the 'wrong crowd'. Kavinsky takes advantage of Ronan's vulnerability and while Gansey prides himself on cool reason, when it comes to Kavinsky his thoughts unwillingly wander to homicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Good Son

**Author's Note:**

> uh, so this fic is like, two years old, i hella added and edited around things so if you read it two years ago and found your way back to it (first thank you so much) it might be worth a reread since things are kinda chopped up into different chapters since theres more content on certain things sdkfjdf i also tried to smooth out the weird unrealistic conversation jumps, i hope I got them all and I hope it is somewhat improved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings:  
> \- violence, blood  
> \- religious blasphemy (??, no more than in the books but to be safe)

tumblr: [savagelyhandsome](http://savagelyhandsome.tumblr.com/)

twitter: [blamehobi](https://twitter.com/peokji)

 

 

"We've all gathered here today to celebrate the life of a father, husband, and true man of the Lord."

 _He keeps droning on, and on, and on, and on._ Ronan taps Matthew's shoulder, "Make him _stop._ " By him, he's referring to the priest. 

 

Earlier Declan stood in front of Aurora and Ronan, intercepting people from around Henrietta who came to give their condolences to the family. He shook hands, spoke softly and polite, was cordial. Ronan wanted to leave and maybe punch Declan into acting like he cared on the way out. Later when the sermon was about to start did they speak to each other.

Ronan suspects Declan was the reason why after a while of glaring at everyone who moved to see around the oldest son, Matthew asked Ronan to take him to the bathroom. To get some air and distance away from what he'd have to sit and endure for four more hours. Irritably it was something he needed. Maybe they would've gotten through this ordeal if it weren't for something Ronan heard whispered outside the bathroom.

He slammed open the door-recently he had begun to slam everything- and met the eyes of two women he'd never seen around his family before. They immediately quietened and Ronan slid into all the ways he knew of making himself terrifying. He had his own suit jacket and a tinier one hung over his arm. Matthew was still in the bathroom. Ronan felt poison ready to spew from his mouth but clenched his jaw tighter.

The women retreated to the parking lot, whispering as they went.  _One of the sons._

Ronan let the anger melt out of his pose and hoped he looked relatively the same when Matthew came out. One of them that glanced back and saw Matthew immediately quickened their pace to walk faster to their car, which furthered the intensity of Ronan's glare. Only when he turned to his brother did he tear his gaze from their backs to hand Matthew his jacket and walk him back to where their mother sat.

The Aurora Lynch without Niall Lynch was distant, cold and everything Ronan feared. He missed her but she was right there, Ronan only could imagine what this was doing to her favorite son- Ronan's favorite brother. Matthew immediately held Aurora's hand in his but didn't let go of Ronan's hand after they took their seats.

"Who the fuck are these _people_?" Ronan grit under his breath after the last of them had patted Declan on the back solemnly and waved at 'little Matthew' before taking their seat and leaving Declan to squeeze pass them and return to his spot next to the 'mute widow'.

Declan turned and said something that Ronan didn't entirely hate him for, "Tragedy vultures."

But now, with the sermon, any whispers were heard under the priests' tired voice. " _God,_ make it  _stop,_ " half way between a grumble and a moan, Ronan makes eye contact with an older man who turned to look at the adjacent pew, no doubt at Ronan's use of  _the Lord's name in vain._ Ronan lifts his head in acknowledgement and winks at the man, who can't be younger than sixty, and grins. He gets pulled away from seeing his reaction when Matthew's hand in his tightens.

" _Ronan_ ," he pleads, "we've talked about this." His younger brother hushes, his cherub face downcast.

Declan, two seats over on the other side of Aurora Lynch, leans forward slightly to squint at Ronan.

Then glare.

Ronan turns away from him, then the middle Lynch brother throws his head back, staring at the cross hanging above the congregation, the stained glass windows. This isn't even the church they go to.

"A noble soul who was taken to soon from this world," the Priest intones.

He starts sniffing into his fist, half heartedly hiding his laughs into coughs. He's distressing his brothers quietly at first. But that only lasts so long.

" _He will be dearly missed._ " He mocks.

" _Ronan._ " Matthew squeezes his hand, "Please, stop." His other small fist is wrapped around their mother's limp hand.

He feels a twinge in his heart. But he can't stop laughing.

Deep laughs rumble in his chest, bursts of it. One escapes before he shoves a fist into his mouth. 

 _Shut up, you're upsetting Matthew._ He reprimands himself, feeling a little more unhinged and panicked as the sermon continues.

But he's still not exactly quiet.

Matthew looks pained, Declan tensely rolls his shoulders, and people start turning around to glance at the smaller family of Lynches. Ronan can't find it in himself to care.

He thinks he hears the priest stutter over the sound of Declan's foot tapping. The picture of his father up against the casket is surreal. Ronan tries to focus of the weight of Matthews' hand in his. The more he's forced to witness this parade of faked ceremony, the more he finds this whole charade hysterically humorous.

It's when he snorts that Declan bursts from his seat and knocks Ronan out of his, pulling him by his white button down. There are murmurs, someone gasps and it makes Ronan's skin crawl with irritation.

He knows none of these people.

* * *

 When they're outside, Declan shifts his footing and slams Ronan into the rock wall. Even the force he uses to push him is controlled. Gentle, even.

"Matthew," he spits, "is mourning and you're  _laughing_."

Ronan just tilts his head back and chuckles. Declan shakes him by his collar, his eyes electric.

"Ronan, don't do this to-"  _Matthew_ , he would've finished.

"I thought you were doing better, I thought-" he drops his eyes and loosens his grip a fraction. Declan looks thirty years old in this suit, wearing the crease between his eyes. Concern, anxiety and stress all held between his shoulders.

Declan shakes him again, "Look, Ronan. I know you miss him."

Ronan laughs once but it's pointed and sharp. Understatement of the year, no- decade. Declan waits till Ronan looks into his eyes, and he exhales, "Dad is dead-"

Words that have been running through his head for days, on loop, all bubble to the surface. But he's certain that they're things that they both leave unspoken.

 _It's my fault! Stop pretending you don't blame me for this!_ He wants to scream. He wants to feel the fury that Declan hides so well, he wants anger from the brother that raised him and watched him turn into  _this_. It hadn't escaped Ronan's notice; Recently, how Declan hesitates a fraction before leaving Matthew and his mother alone with him. A _monster_. The same things that they buried in the backyard under the night sky when Ronan's dreams began.

Declan said something else but he didn't hear him, he was focusing on the acute pain of a rock that was digging into his back. He wraps his hands around Declan's, clenched onto his shirt, and shoves him. Declan allows himself to be propelled backward.

" _Ronan_." Declan warns.

Still treating Ronan like he's delicate, always afraid to hit him too hard.

"Dad's not here anymore,"  _and you and I both blame me for that_. He turns his chin up in a challenge, "Stop holding back Declan, you want to hit me." He shoves him again.

He delights when he sees Declan ball his fists. "You want to hit me, for laughing, for hurting Matthew, for not finding Dad sooner."  _For killing him._

Declan raises his finger, and jabs it into Ronan's chest. Hard. " _You_ don't know what you're talking about."

"Hit me." Ronan shoves him.

Declan takes a voluntary step back.

He shouldn't have done it, he reflected in retrospect. But there were many things he shouldn't have done.

One well-placed swing lands on Declan's jaw. He didn't even bother to block it. There was a sickening snap that always came with skin hitting skin. Declan's head turned with the hit, but he just looked annoyed. 

"Hit me!" Ronan shouted, he hated how broken his voice sounded. Declan winces and Ronan burns at the sight of pain reflected on Declan's face.

"I'm the reason he's dead! If I hadn’t been listening to my shitty electronic music that you _hate_ , I might've heard our father being  _beaten_  to death." 

Something snapped in Declan like a lighter flickering on, but Ronan could barely revel in that fact. Everything he said was true. Ronan let Declan take him to the ground, just like Declan let him hit him. He briefly wonders if he was hoping this would happen too.

"Stop doing _this_!" Declan shouted. He's all but forgotten the ceremony inside.

"Think outside of your self-loathing brain for once. Realize that punishing yourself, or whatever sick and twisted reason you get off on this, won't fix anything."

Ronan wraps a leg around Declan's back and with expert skill, he is able to flip them both over. He stares down his brother, "At least I'm not pretending nothing has changed."

The tiredness in Declan's eyes, the unsurprised expectancy that he looks back at Ronan with, makes quiets the long boiling hatred in his stomach long enough for Ronan to remember his original plan now that he'd punched Declan into telling the truth. Ronan gets up, and stalks over to his father's car. He shoves his hand into his black slacks to find the keys. He ignores the sound of gravel as Declan gets back up on his feet and ignores the sounds of his approach.

"I'm protecting you!" Declan shouted at his back. "Dad was too. That much was obvious, he took it to the _bloody grave_ for god's sake."

Ronan spun around and pushed him, "Leave. Me. Alone." He bit. 

Declan stared at him in utter disbelief as if Ronan hadn't been wearing the most miserable expression the entire morning, emanating the most powerful aura of ' _I don't want to be here_ ' since the time Niall snuck the two of them into a pub to watch a football match with all their uncles.

"Alright then. You win, Ronan." Declan holds his hands up, "Dad's not here."

Declan looked terrifying in that moment. Ronan was glad Matthew was still inside because he wouldn't have been able to recognize his brother.

It wasn't just his face, cold and collected, it was how he was laughing. Big, careless, and full of round vowels. Like he didn't find anything about Ronan's behavior particularly funny but was laughing anyways. "He's gone, and someone has to keep some semblance of control over our lives." He spits.

Then Declan dragged his feet into an unbreakable stance that he learned from none other than the body that lay inside of a box in the Church. His laugh died inside of his mouth. A smile tore into Ronan’s face, but his expression was as hard as granite.

"Bring it, brother." Declan said  _brother_ like he meant to say  _bastard._

"Planning on it, Dipshit." Ronan said  _Dipshit_  like he meant to say  _Declan._

He sneered, an uncommon expression on Declan's face, differing from his usual look of subtle despair and anxiety. Their growing hate for each other suddenly bloomed and eclipsed their grief and worries in a violent embrace. Ronan had gotten what he wanted from Declan since he helped Aurora carry Ronan inside after finding him in the drive way clinging to the corpse of their father.  _You should hate me._

Declan soon took Ronan down with a fist to the gut, but he sprang back up, fist smacking into his brother. Elbows rammed into faces. Declan's arms braced around Ronan's middle and slammed him into a handicap sign. Ronan felt that one in his spine.

He twisted his hands into Declan's suit coat and used it to fling him onto the side of the BMW. He was unbelievably strong.

Declan ground his teeth and pushed Ronan back only to plant a fist above his eye. Ronan returned the favor, with Declan's fingers hooked in his mouth; he swung a fist into his nose. He felt the bone break against his knuckles.

"Fuck!" shouted Declan, and Ronan cracked a smile.

The brothers had received from their father years of odd Irish instrument lessons and learning how to box like they meant it. Ronan had gotten his father's molten eyes and a smile made for war. He wore that smile now; it was the shadow of a phantom. Blood dripped into his eye from his split brow, and his grin made him look more skeleton than boy.

Declan held his hands to his face, blood seeping between his fingers.

Ronan wiped the blood from his eyebrow and looked up just in time to see Matthew push past the small group of onlookers standing in the doorway of the Church as if the threshold was a holy line that would keep them safe from the devils in front of them.

Declan let him go this time, there was no excuses or questions to stall him. He just stared at his brother with such contempt for him that it rivaled Ronan's own.

They departed without saying a word; even Matthew stayed silent. He was staring at Ronan with sympathetic eyes and tear stained rosy cheeks. 

In the rear view mirrors of the car, Declan had stood and wrapped an arm around Matthew and led him back into the Church. 

Ronan peeled out of the parking lot.

His eyes flickered down to his bloodstained knuckles wrapped around the wheel as he paused at an intersection. Ronan tilted his head back, huffed out a breath, feeling entirely too tired and worn to drive anywhere at the moment.

“I’m sorry Matthew," he said into the silence of the car.

Then the light turned green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- uh so Gansey vaguely knows Ronan before Niall Lynch dies, and he also finds out about Ronan's ability early into their relationship, there are also other minor adjustments to the canon storyline.  
> -(major??? adjustments to canon character descriptions, but have you been to virginia?? it's not realistic to have all white main characters at a rich school in virginia) like:  
> 1) Ronan Lynch has been claimed by Reece King, i don't make up the rules. + the idea of ronan having slight accented speech from growing up around a ActiveDad!Niall works well with reece being a brit. (cause if niall spent this long here, his irish is gonna start sounding more mixed with an american accent to his family but to others it sounds london/vaguely irish and if you're the lynch postman, 'australian')  
> 2) also the idea of him always shaving bc aurora isn't around to help him with his natural hair makes me heLLA soft ok fuck. pretty sure you can be pale and poc at the same time, sun exposure does wonders and,, lack of it,, also.. nice.. cool ok, pls just go with it.  
> 4) blue is mixed japanese and black, Maura is half japanese and black (her mom kept her maiden name so maura kept hers instead of her fathers, which was somethng like seito,marumoto, idk), and artemus is a whole fine black man.  
> 5) orla is afro-latina. honestly ever since the lake scene, my gay ass,,  
> 6) persephone is still (canon) estonian, nOt russian ha.  
> 7) Calla is a proud Honduran dammit  
> you don't really have to remember this but i'm putting it here so that it won't be too much of ha Surprise! later.


	2. Shark

He drove in silence because when he first started the car, a song played. A hit single from one of Niall's favorite obscure Irish bands. He stopped on the side of the road near a forest overlooking suburban homes.

Ronan turned it off immediately.

He took a deep shuddering breath after breath till he no longer felt his grief lodged in his throat. Then he drove to the most desolate part of Henrietta. The part that was all empty roads and baked pavement.

 

 

He made his father's BMW scream and smoke as he took sharp turns and swings that would've made Declan sweat and do that nervous tapping thing he always did when tense.

No, don't think about him.

Which was hard because every time he gripped the wheel tightly in his hands, his knuckles ached from when he broke Declan's nose.

He wasn't completely unscathed either, there was a rib that was swelling and red but Ronan barely paid attention to that. There was a white Mitsubishi that he'd seen parked at corners he'd blown past and behind buildings looking onto the parking lots he'd etched into with burned rubber.

After doing donuts in an empty supermarket parking lot, he made for the exit, only to see the white car blocking it.  The lights were on and he could make out one person behind the wheel. His blood ran cold, but then he asked himself if his father's murderer would drive a street trash car like that, with a license plate that read 'THIEF".

Like it mattered, he shrugged.

 

The BMW's lights blared into the Mitsubishi's, and he pulled himself out of his father's car. As Ronan walked closer, he could see who was behind the bright lights. Joseph Kavinsky, infamous at Aglionby for his substance parties, drag races and just about everything.

Kavinsky was, to say the least, shocked and pleased with the boy's appearance. He was still wearing his black tux, unbuttoned, white dress shirt, black slacks and dress shoes from the funeral. He looked so impeccably put together, pristine and polished. Everything that Kavinsky knew he could ruin with just a touch. But there was something jagged and ripped in his expression and his eyes were dangerous. It made Kavinsky's skin itch.

A shark in a suit.

 

And not just any shark,Kavinsky recognized the car and the name of the man he usually saw sitting behind the wheel.

He slipped out of the car, "Back from the gala, Lynch?" his Bostonian accent felt out of place in this area. 

"Kavinsky," Ronan acknowledged, ignoring his probe.

"What brings you to this side of the fence?" He tilted his head down, lowering his white shades, in a low voice he said, "Drugs?"

Ronan scoffed, he found the situation ridiculous but his expression was nothing but intense disinterest.

 

Strange.

 

Kavinsky threw his shades into the backseat of the car and crossed his arms. Ronan briefly wondered if Kavinsky aimed for 'asshole' when he dressed in the morning. Ronan looked him over, from his Air Jordan's, ripped black jeans, to his white muscle tank, piercings and snapback that hid his overly gelled hair. Kavinsky noticed this and leaned against the car, obviously posing for him.

The asshole with his headlights on clicked his tongue, "My eyes are up here, Lynch."

Ronan rolled his eyes, "I just want you to move your dumbass car so I can get-" home, he wanted to say home but he couldn't do that anymore.

"So which one are you again? You Declan?"

With that question, Ronan snapped into the present, his nostrils flared and his jaw clenched. Kavinsky reveled in the sharpness in Ronan's face that replaced the disinterested expression that Kavinsky was curious about. 

_Declan. Touchy, huh?_

 

"No," he shook a hand at him, "I see you with Dick 3, you're that Ronan boy." He smiled, a greasy and slimy thing that Ronan thought matched everything else about him.

"And you're in my way."

Kavinsky held his hands out. "Hey man, I heard about your Dad. That's rough, I mean when I mine got murdered I was kinda pissed, but hey you get over it."

If Ronan was angry at Declan, it was nothing compared to the rage that quickly ignited in him with those words. Ronan quickly stomped out the flames before Kavinsky could get a reaction out of him.

"Fuck off," he said with the most venom and malice possible. He released his balled fists and pulled open the car door, and settled into the driver's seat. Kavinsky did the same but didn't move his car; instead he rolled down his windows.

 

"So I take it that you don't want to race?"

Ronan cocked his head and didn't respond. Kavinsky smirked, and rolled his car to the side of the exit. Ronan saw the opening and pulled up next to him.

Kavinsky laughed when Ronan flipped him off.

 

The BMW's tires bit into the asphalt as he left Kavinsky behind at the corner of closed Bag n' Grab.


	3. Kings

Two hours of parking the car at various stops on the road where the city below could be seen undivided had left Ronan extremely tired. Emotionally. Maybe it was also physically, but he couldn't tell the two apart. He just lay in the rolled back seat and listened to all the CD's he could find in the side compartment. When he closed his eyes, he willed himself to picture the Barns, his father, and his family. He couldn't call them that anymore.

He couldn't call any of that his.

When the sound of a cello and bagpipes settled into silence, Ronan rubbed his eyes open and looked through the CD album. He flipped through it, until he saw one he hadn't heard before while dozing in the back seat of the car when his father would drive his sons to school. It only read 'rain' on the matte surface, scribbled in sharpie in his father's writing.

Ronan clicked the CD in, and an hour later he was in no condition to return to the dormitories so instead he parked in the lot of an abandoned building a few blocks away from school. Ronan had searched up one of the songs on the CD and read the lyrics, he then went to text his dad to ask him why he had this song in his car before he stopped himself and pinched the bridge of his nose.

 _This is going to take a while to get used to,_  he hoped.

He feared that he wasn't mourning the correct way and that somehow he'd forget how Niall looked and what his laugh sounded like and the way he said Ronan's name and what his shirt always smelled like when Ronan hugged him- When Ronan released his breath, the next one was ragged and uneven.

He punched the dashboard.

His breathing became even again.

He pressed his thumb on the play button, laid back and listened to 'Sense of Home', thinking that his father was skilled at cruel jokes beyond the grave*. The music was loud enough so that he couldn't hear his own thoughts, despite the soft tones and slowness of the song. He didn't hear the orange Camaro pull into the driveway and park in front of the 'abandoned' building. Ronan sang softly, mostly mumbled, " _and your father has made you all that you've become, cause these words aren't meant for anyone else..._ " Almost falling asleep, feeling tired enough to want to but even now, the worry ate at him.

His eyes were closed and his head was back so he couldn't see when the lights turned on in the second floor of the building, illuminating through the windows.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ronan had no recollection of falling asleep. He was disoriented and sweaty when he awoke to tapping on the window of the driver's side. It was dreamless and felt like he'd just closed his eyes, but opening them now he saw that any traces of the sun had disappeared.

Sense of Home was still playing. He turned it off. It was nearly 8.

He rolled down his window, and looked at the silhouette of a boy.

"What?" It was cleanly cut to be unmistakably aggressive but the person showed no understanding of that. It pissed Ronan off.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." He paused and checked his watch, "It's awfully late, I saw your car, and I recognized you."

Ronan scrunched up his face; the boy amended, "You're in my Latin class, at Aglionby."

By now Ronan's eyes had adjusted and could recognize the cleanly cut hair and brightly colored crisp polo shirt that he avoided every three days out of the week.

"Oh, _you_." He still wasn't put off at that remark either.

Instead, the boy stuck his hand into the car, "Name's Gansey."

Ronan was silent for a long moment and made no move to shake the hand that hovered in the window of his car. Ronan was good at silence, after the murder was reported across Virginian and local news, silence was what many people got when they came up to tell him something unimportant and remind him all over again that the entire town now believed that they'd witnessed his tragedy. Silence made people uncomfortable.

But Latin Boy's face didn't waver and Ronan was struck by the urge to roll the window up on his hand. Instead, quelling the urge, Ronan grabbed it and shook it once.

"Ronan." His eyes darted to Gansey's, wary and hostile.

Gansey pointed a hand behind him at the building, "I live there and you're welcome to come inside. It's rather late to be going to the dormitories at this hour."

Gansey stood, politely waiting. Ronan stared at him for a moment. When Gansey didn't rescind the offer, Ronan realized he was serious and that he also had no 'Declan free' place to stay for the night. He rubbed his face, "Yeah."

He ran his hands over his buzzed hair then turned to the door and pushed it open, "Yeah, sure."

If Gansey noticed the suit, he didn't comment on it and just strode over to the building without checking if Ronan was following him. Ronan had a hand around his neck, trying to rub out the odd angles of the car seat.

"When d'you move here?" Ronan was not one for small talk but annoyingly he was here, doing it anyways. 

"When I started at Aglionby," he replied easily, "it's quiet spacious, for two people anyways."

Ronan gave the back of his head a quizzical look that could be easily- and correctly- interpreted as judgemental. "Didn't ask for a roommate eval."

Gansey turned in time to catch it and looked surprised but not ruffled at all when he said, "Oh, my apologies, I meant Noah. My roommate. However there still is plenty of room."

He grinned the all too familiar teacher-bending smile, but there was something more open and less controlled about it. Regardless Ronan still wanted to smack it off of him. He led Ronan up to the door and swung it wide, he stepped aside to let Ronan in and then shut it.

Ronan didn't say anything about his attire and his day; Gansey probably already knew by the way he was moving around Ronan. Carefully selected words, and a gentle voice.

It was all over the news. Murder is the very highlight of conversation when it happens, especially in a small town like Henrietta, the last big thing that Ronan could remember was some missing kid from Aglionby but that was a few years ago.

The disdainful attitudes towards Aglionby boys and their families, that he generally agreed with, became volatile triggers, Ronan had decked a classmate at school who he heard joke that Aurora killed Niall for the trust fund. Everyone else, passing people, fascinated with other people's suffering, pushed the limits of his self-restraint because they knew nothing about Ronan's father. Plenty of kids were familiar with Aurora, as she opted to have Matthew join the Henrietta youth soccer club at the public school than a private club. She often joked that Niall would have to buy her a sedan so she could be a _fully licensed soccer mom._  

It was the parents who criticized her after Declan appeared in the newspapers instead of Aurora. He didn't know the women who he overheard in the hallway but he was sure Matthew did, parents of his teammates or other Aglionby parents. Ronan hoped that he never heard them.

_'The poor boy, having to take care of his family.'_

_'That woman should be taking care of her children instead of having that charming young man handle this much at his age.'_

_'She's the one that Josie called a mute widow?'_

_'Oh, yes, she's just sitting out there while her boy greets everyone.'_

_'Strange.'_

_'Hm,'_ one of them agreed, _'it's unsettling-'_

They didn't know that Aurora Lynch sent letters to all three of her sons every time she thought of them.

Although the Lynches, like other students whose families lived in the surrounding Virginian towns, went home every weekend.

They didn't know she did it because, as she explained to Declan before, "I miss you every second that I don't see you."

They didn't know Ronan couldn't imagine his life without those weekends. Without Aurora living just east of Henrietta on the sprawling land that her impossible creature of a son called home.

They didn't know that home was nestled in the rolling hills of Singer's Falls and hidden in mist that rose like the moon in the sky. "A place where nature's beauty comes closest to your mother's," Niall had said, lifting his then youngest son onto his shoulders to see the sun as it rose over their house one morning. 

They didn't know where Matthew got the gentle eyes he sees the world with.

They didn't know that she told her middle son that when he was born, "the trees all grew flowers and the Henrietta ravens laughed."

So of all the things Ronan wanted to spit at those people, the one he thought of was no where near as harsh as they deserved.

'My _mom was so lovely, she would've made your head spin.'_

So he didn't say anything.

 

"May I help you to a cup of tea? Coffee, perhaps?" Gansey interrupted him from his thoughts.

"Huh?" Ronan looked up and saw him holding two cups in his hands in the kitchen, which also looked like it opened into a bathroom. "If you mix it with vodka, then yeah."

Gansey eyed the bald blurry speck that was Ronan's head from behind a cabinet, "So… No?"

"It was a joke," Sort of, "I'll take your tea."

Gansey, good naturedly as ever, laughed. Although his eyes said he was not completely fooled.

Ronan looked around the main room, as he looked for a place he could throw his body down onto. There was only a nest of books and old mugs near a desk in the back and a old lawn chair that didn't look safe to sit on without it snapping in half under Ronan's weight. So he just sat, and lay down on the polished concrete.

He stared at the high ceilings and the extravagant amount of books strewn about the place. The chill of it felt nice after being in his stuffy car for a few hours.

He waited for a while, mulling over his thoughts while dish wares clinked from the kitchen and Gansey moved around the room. They stayed in silence, Ronan supposed Gansey didn't know what to talk about. But he could also hear how loudly Gansey was thinking. Ronan didn't know if he appreciated the lack of useless niceties like small talk when it made room for this subtle tension, the quiet itself, a gesture of consideration. Ronan Lynch was not one to enjoy pity.

Maybe he was the one thinking to hard about this. Ronan stared hard at the hideous polo shirt that covered Gansey's back. He was straightening book stacks and as the time went by Ronan remembered the other roommate, who seemed to be out. He lost his glasses. The kettle whistled.

" _Oh!_ Here they are," he said to himself after entering the kitchen.

"Okay, let's get this out of the way." He said when Gansey sat across from him on the floor and put a mug next to Ronan's head.

He took a sip, "I beg your pardon?" His glasses were fogged from the steam of his cup.

"My dad. The homicide victim?"

Gansey was halted in his thoughts, his eyes flickered searching for words, but Ronan beat him too it. He'd seen the same look on Gansey's face on many others before him.

"You want to ask about it but you're too much of a wuss to do it. I don't care, frankly I'd like to get it off my chest."

Gansey cautiously tapped the ground in front of him. He looked caught, uneasy and it pleased Ronan. Polo Boy looked at the ground before replying, and adjusted his glasses where they slipped down his sculpted nose, "If you're comfortable with that, I don't mind-"

Ronan waved him off dismissively, "It's better than gushing to my brothers or Declan's hired psychologist, I'd rather say it to someone I'm not gonna see everyday."

"But we have Latin-"

Gansey stopped when Ronan made a face, "Yeah, sorry, okay. Go ahead."

Ronan drummed his fingers on his lips, debating how to say it but ultimately what came out was: "Niall Lynch was murdered."

Somehow he could not bring himself to say 'my father' or 'and it was my fault'. He said it matter-a-factly, like Declan had, tasting the sound of those words in his mouth. Ronan felt himself nearly choke on them.

Gansey swallowed, staying silent, his mug cupped in his hands but he didn't take another sip. Ronan realized belatedly that it was a Moomin* mug. Something about the familiarity of it stung and he distantly made the connection. Whatever. 

He noted the theme dully. Weird guy, weird clothes, weird flat, weird cup, weird night.

Ronan fiddled with his cufflinks, silver infinity knots the size of a dime, a stone in the center that was the same stormy green of Niall's eyes. "I was the first- no second, person to know." Gansey tilted his head a fraction and his eyebrows knitted together but then it dawn on him and his expression grew blank.

"I couldn't even hold him," Ronan laughed weakly, "His body was so stiff."

"I started screaming. I couldn't even get up to call for help. I just collapsed by his side and cried into his bloody shirt. Useless." He smiled, it was pathetic and delusional and he didn't even have to see his face himself to tell that. "I had gone to get the mail, and about an hour later my mom noticed I didn't come back and went down the drive way."

Ronan's voice grew quiet, "She screamed when she saw us," a pause, "I won't ever forget that sound."

"She ran to me, the whole time saying 'no, not Niall' over and over again into my ear." His ass began to hurt and he turned on his side. Looking at Gansey, among his Gansey things, in his Gansey flat made Ronan realize where he was, who he was talking to, what he was talking about. He willed himself to ignore it, pathetic as he felt, the fact that he kept discovering that there were ways to fall further from his father's grace. Here he was lying in a strangers living room recounting something that he told his family that he didn't remember.

At some point through Ronan's story, Gansey had set aside his mug and procured a pillow, which he rested his chin on with his arms wrapped around it.

Ronan's voice was rough when he continued; "She had to drag me away. My hands were clenched so tightly in his shirt that they were cramping up." Ronan mimicked balling them up before he realized, and he folded them on his stomach.

He released his hands and shoved them into his pockets. "I had his blood all over me."

"Declan called the police while my mom wiped my face and hands. Mathew was at a friends house. Her hands were shaking and warm, I don't remember much else."

Ronan closed his eyes when they begun to burn, "The police tried to question me at the house but I couldn't speak," He shook his head, and exhaled. "When Matthew came home he said that I wasn't there, when he looked into my eyes I was gone." The youngest consoled the middle Lynch brother. Pathetic. Ronan huffed under his breath, "Dramatic."

It was the first time Gansey spoke since he'd begun and Ronan found himself grateful for it, "And today was his funeral."

Ronan nodded. He tried to, subtly, take a shaky breath in. When he opened his eyes and rolled back onto his side to face Gansey, a tear slid out from the corner of his eye, and he let it. "Declan kicked me outside for- laughing, an' we fought," he rushed to say, "So I drove around, listened to sad ass music and that's how I ended up in your driveway."

He left out the part about Kavinsky. He stared at the ground for a bit.

"Can we change the subject?"

"Of course." Gansey sprang up to his feet and kicked the pillow closer to Ronan.

Ronan propped it under his head, and Gansey looked over his shoulder as he went back into the kitchen, "Also, I lied, we do have liquor." Ronan watched as he bent down under the sink and came back with two glasses and a bottle of scotch. Expensive scotch.

"Tell me when." Gansey didn't realize how much it hurt Ronan for him to say that, he sounded just like Aurora Lynch.

Ronan didn't say anything, and Gansey was forced to pour it just to the brim. He raised an eyebrow, and Ronan wondered what it was like to have such a delicate control over your facial expressions, "You're really going to drink all that? A hangover?" Gansey waved his empty glass, "On a Sunday?"

Ronan rolled his eyes hard and downed it all right then and there.

Gansey gaped at him, "Good god."

"The hangover will give me something else to think about...", Ronan looked at the wall next to Gansey when he spoke, "and thanks- y'know, for this." He raised his glass off the ground beside him.

Gansey sat between a small low table covered in newspaper scrapings and a pile of books with sticky notes and various things sticking out from between the pages. There was a mound of pillows against the wall among the books, Ronan discovered the source of the cushions that Gansey kept procuring. There were a pile of books near him which he recognized as reading material and instinctively cringed away from the sight of textbooks where he lay in his white button up, slacks, and jacket shrugged off, splayed around him; the irony of the image was not lost on him.

He sat up.

The Ronan a few months ago would feel bad for intruding like this and downing good scotch like shitty tequila.

The Ronan today, lying on the floor of his classmate's apartment at 10 pm on, as Gansey put it, 'a school night' , felt strangely at ease for the first time since his world was broken and fractured into 43 pieces by a tire iron. 

"No need," Gansey smiled, "think of it as compensation for interrupting your nap."

Ronan shrugged in response and reached to pour himself some more. Gansey drank from his halfway filled glass, "So, the change of subject you asked about?"

"As you were." Ronan nodded and reached for his forgotten glass.

Gansey leaned closer, glass dangling from one hand, readjusting his glasses with his other, "What do you know about Welsh Kings?"

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

Footnotes

*Listen to Sense of Home [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOFz4Q1cL7c). 

*Moomin (moomins) are characters from a comic by a Swedish Illustrator, it's really popular in Japan. Aurora liked the characters after she saw them in a Welsh newspaper that Niall brought back for her, she bought sippy cups for the boys when they were wee babes. Gansey receives moomin cups from Helen, he's started a collection. Ronan thinks life is a joke. They look like[ this.](https://shop.moomin.com/collections/kitchen/mugs)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fell in love with Aurora the first time Ronan described dreaming about the Barns :(  
> Also I felt it good to mention now that in this AU Aurora is not a dream thing, different from the book, she doesn't sleep all the time and recognizes her sons but the dynamic Maggie wrote was so soft that it was easy to imagine that heart break (and serious clinical depression) could do that to someone. Also Niall is not an entirely shit dad to Declan, #a concept
> 
> Up coming flashback to the Lynch household when everything was Nairora (ssdjsdj uh, ship name?? i guess?) and nothing hurt.
> 
> The "my mom was so lovely she would've made your head spin," was from The Get Down (show), Ezekiel's Poem (song on spotify yo, listen to it and cry w me).


	4. Monmouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning:  
> -alcoholism  
> -suicide attempt

**The Next Day**

Ronan applied for his own dormitory and it got rejected due to him being 'at risk' because of his father's murder. Total bullshit.

He refused Declan's offer, which was halfhearted anyways.

The nightmares were getting worse, and Ronan couldn't risk it. He cringed at the idea of someone else putting up with his night fits or worse, and he sure as _hell_ would make sure that wasn't Declan.

After two days of sleeping in his car and smelling pretty awful, he woke up to Gansey, knocking on his window for the second time.

"Would you be interested in that roommate eval?"

 

With Ronan's reluctant compliance, and Gansey's spooky ability to appeal to anyone, Ronan was moved in within 3 days.

Ronan had also observed a mutual agreement between Declan and Gansey, which he tried not to let it get to him. Instead he just aggressively tapped on the passenger side window and huffed out childish sighs when Gansey asked him about his beef with his brother.

"He's an asshole."

"That's not very descriptive." Ronan could feel the eyebrow quirk from where Gansey was turned around, reversing out of the stall with his glasses smashed between his head and the headrest.

"Well, he's a liar."

"Now, that's something I can get behind."

* * *

 

**A Week Later**

Gansey almost wishes Ronan would punch something, or go back to being an angry drunk. Throwing vodka bottles and blasting angry music at 5 am when Gansey actually tries to sleep.

At least he knows what to do then.

Calm Ronan down. Clean up the glass. Fix the mess. Make him shower. Give him water. Put him to bed. It was clear-cut then, instructions weren't needed.

 

He doesn't know what to do when Ronan is like this.

When Ronan refuses to go to school, when he refuses to eat, when all he does is stare at the wall.

Ronan assumes that the phone calls Gansey's always taking are from Declan or a psychologist. Gansey assumes that the dead and tired look in his eyes is the same thing Matthew saw that cursed day.

Meanwhile the only thing running through Ronan's head is Niall, thinking about that glassy, out of it look that was held in his eyes.  _What was the last thing he saw?_ And when he's not thinking about his father's long dead stare, he's trying his hardest to mimic it while slowly sinking into his mattress till he's inevitably swallowed up into the memory foam loaf.

Gone forever, without a trace, which is the opposite of what Niall accomplished.

When he's not thinking about the man who's eyes were the color of secrets, he's trying so damn hard to forget about him.

Drinking whiskey that Gansey allows only because it's not vodka, which they discovered makes him messy and angry. Gansey can deal with a slower, albeit sadder Lynch.

Whiskey makes it easier to look in the mirror every other day and see his father reflected back at him. Makes it easier to see how much of him is left in Ronan, and see bits of him engraved in Ronan's most private parts of his life.

In his music, in the few books that he owns, they were all his father's once. Ronan is the owner of a different kind of second hand clothing.

It's his skin.

* * *

 

When Gansey comes home from school, he goes straight to Ronan's room. A tentative knock, meets silence, and he slips inside the door. 

Sitting on the edge of Ronan's mattress, eyeing the untouched eggs and toast, and the unmoving lump of blankets. He reaches out a hand and places it on his best guess of Ronan's hip.

Ronan jerks slightly at the touch, "Sorry." Gansey whispers.

It's really muffled so Gansey has to strain to hear, "It's ok." Gansey quietly marvels at this new development. It's the first time Ronan's spoken to him in 3 days when he officially banned Whiskey as well.

The last time he spoke was drunken slurs of 'Fuck you's at Gansey, when he pried Ronan's finger off the balcony railing.

He was about to jump.

 


	5. Trying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings:  
> \- vague dub-con/ implied rape  
> \- everything bad in the tags

He only gets out of bed around 5 am, when Gansey is leaving for rowing practice or finally falling asleep. He showers, sometimes eats something, drinks water if Gansey's lucky, then goes back to his bed listening to punk rock or Irish folk, folding in on himself under layers of blankets.

Ronan must've lost track of the days because on Sunday morning, when Ronan must've thought it was Monday, Gansey was still at Monmouth.

Gansey was still there to hear Ronan pick up his violin, and play for the better half of the morning. Gansey didn't move an inch in his bed, he had a slightly desperate need to use the bathroom but he stayed deathly still.

He stayed that way till Ronan ended his song. It was mournful. That was the only word Gansey could think of. Out of all the classical music he listens to he never once heard anything like it.

Partial lullaby, partial folk? Gansey lifted the blankets higher to feign sleep if needed and tuned his hearing to sounds from inside Ronan's room. He heard a squeak, and then the twang of strings mixed with the echoing smash of wood.

_Oh, Ronan._

 

Ronan's fists are balled into his duvet, in one hand is the bow and the other is half of the violin. He pressed his face into it, "Fuck this."

He feels a pocket of air in his throat and wills the hysteria to go away.

_It's not the same without you._

Ronan sucks in a deep breath, his breath hitching a bit. Ronan stands and hurls the bow at the wall, snapping it in half. It lands next to the other half of the violin. He hears a noise. Dragging his palms across his bleary eyes, he pauses before he turns slowly to look at Gansey.

"Ronan-" Gansey begins, his eyes evaluating the damage.

Ronan feels his energy drain out of him, dripping off his shoulders.

 

"Why do you deal with me?"

"Because I have too." Gansey's voice holds adoration that Ronan could never have for himself.

Ronan's shoulders sag, and Gansey takes a cautious step forward.

Ronan's head falls to the ground, Gansey watches as his form begins to tremble.

Ronan smashes his palms into his eyes. Furiously smearing his tears.

Gansey puts two strong hands on Ronan's arms, and moves him back to the bed. Sitting on it, he pulls Ronan into his arms.

 

"I don't know what to do." Ronan's voice is shaky and fractured; he doesn't hide it, he's too miserable to care.

Gansey thinks his heart might've broken at the sound.

He tightens his embrace around Ronan, caging him in his arms.

Gansey lets Ronan breath for a while, slowing it down and making it deeper. He can feel Ronan's heart beating against his chest.

His next words are pressed into Ronan's temple, "Do you ever get any sleep when I'm gone?"

Gansey turns his head slightly, hands lightly rubbing up and down the pale bare skin of Ronan's back.

"No." Ronan shivers, and Gansey tugs the corner of the duvet to drape it around his and Ronan's shoulders.

"You really should rest."

It's impossible to ignore the deep circles around his eyes and the way his hand shakes.

Ronan stifles a yawn, "Maybe."

Gansey takes off his glasses with one hand and tosses it onto Ronan's nightstand, and then slowly begins to lean them both over till they fall onto their sides, lying on the bed

"Are you gonna let go?" Ronan asks. His head is still against Gansey's canary red polo.

Gansey's smile is soft, "Maybe." He echoes.

Then Gansey isn’t sure he heard it correctly because Ronan had made a sound that sounded like a- laugh? It was once and airy.

Ronan then huffed and curled in closer, unbending his legs. "This is…", _safe?,_ "ok."

Gansey pressed his cheek to his friend's head and pressed his eyes shut, squeezing them and wishing, _wishing_ he could take all his pain away.

Ronan eventually fell asleep to Gansey's soft mint scented breaths and his hand mindlessly dragging his fingertips along Ronan's spine.

Gansey stayed awake, watchful over him.

"I'm so sorry, Ronan."

 

* * *

 

 

"SHIT!" Ronan swerves around a telephone pole; he can hear Kavinsky somewhere behind him, nailing the accelerator. He laughs, big whoops, filled with childish hiccups. He looks into the mirror to get a glimpse of Kavinsky but it was a mistake. He's already at the finish line, gunning it at unimaginable speeds right when Prokopenko waves a white sheet standing a little too close in the street. Ronan switches gears, slamming the break. Hoping, hoping, hoping he didn't hit him.

There's a small bump but when he looks up, P is smiling hysterically. His hands braced on the hot hood of Ronan's car.

"DUDE, I almost fucking DIED." It's hilarious apparently.

Ronan grins too; the adrenaline from the race and from the too-close accident was giving his hands the jitters. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but the risk of hitting someone was just added fun.

Kavinsky got his earful of Prokopenko's excitement and then leaned onto Ronan's open window, "Try not to miss him next time." Did he hear that wrong?

Ronan laughs, "It was too close, and I almost didn't." He said in disbelief but Kavinsky's expression showed no evidence of lightheartedness. Kavinsky gestured to Ronan's hands, "Looks like you need something to come down, 'ere Lynch."

He turned and walked to his car. Ronan popped his door open.

Kavinsky smirks and hold his hand out; Ronan opens up his palm to him. Kavinsky drops a blue pill into his waiting hand. It looks homemade, in the way that powder can be seen between the two connecting capsules. "What is it?" _What does it do?_ Seems more appropriate to ask but Ronan is not trying to arouse suspicion. "It'll relax you." Kavinsky drags a finger down Ronan's shoulder to his wrist, ignoring his question. Ronan watches him wrap two boney fingers around it, feeling his pulse. He makes a disapproving noise, "Fast." He grins, which doesn't seem as disapproving.

Ronan pops it into his mouth once Kavinsky lets go of his wrist.

"For the next act, we'll have to be slower."

That's when Ronan can feel the pill kicking in.

_Pills shouldn't be working this fast._

Ronan's head feels lighter as Kavinsky leads him into the party house they get hammered in every weekend.

It's a dim, neon lit, white plastered walls with stained carpet house.

Ronan nearly giggles, biting on his finger, "This place looks like shit."

Kavinsky sits Ronan down on the couch. Ronan's head tilts back as the room shrinks and grows in his vision.

"Now lay back and take it easy, Lynch."

Ronan tries to speak; he can't tell if his mouth is even open.

"Proko!" P lifts himself from a chair, a joint hanging between his fingertips.

"I'm gonna find Jiang, give this to Lynch, make sure there'll be no trace, 'cause he won't remember a thing."

Proko grins, Ronan slurs.

Fear sends a chill down his spine, a contrast against the feeling of molasses slowly churning in his head and limbs, slowing his movements.

Gritty fingernails pinch another pill between their bitten edges, Proko leans over Ronan, grabbing his jaw.

_Let go._

He laughs when Ronan tries to bite his hand while he slips two fingers into his mouth, prying open his teeth.

"Here, have another, Lynch. It'll make this easier to deal with."

Ronan panics, but Proko easily pins Ronan down in his subdued state.

He shoves a pill down Ronan's throat.

Jiang laughs, and unlocks Kavinsky's phone.

Ronan stares at the flash, his dilated eyes swallow up the light.

"Smile for the camera." Swan calls from someplace, he sounds far away, or maybe he whispered it in Ronan's ear.

The instructions echo in his head, and he smiles. It's dopey and delusional, no doubt, but Ronan barely understands anything that's happening other than the fact that he feels like he's floating and falling at the same time.

 

Ronan's mind turns the boys around him into clowns with balloon heads or bloated bodies. He can't feel anything, he's totally numb, at the moment nothing makes sense and he loves it. But he wouldn't if he knew what was happening.

 

Gansey is awake when the first video is sent to his phone around 1 am. It's a blocked number; the text address is _'To: Dick Dick Dick'_ so it's a simple deduction to figure out who sent it. He slides his chair away from his desk, his journal propped open on top.

When he opens the first video, he wants to throw up.

 

* * *

To: _Dick Dick Dick_

_Meet @ Nino's, it's about your boy toy._

 

“He doesn’t remember what happened, Gansey.” Kavinsky taps out a tempo on the table. “Be a damn shame if he did though, imagine, what it would do to him to find out."

Kavinsky made a grand sweep with his arms, "All this on top of what happened to Niall? It'd break him.” 

Gansey ignored him, "If you have any common sense Kavinsky, you'd better stay away from him, or else I'll call-"

"What? Dick? The cops?" He leans forward on his elbows.

"Lawyers." Gansey scowls, sitting up straighter.

"And what? Have Ronan testify to a rape he doesn't even remember? You'd have to tell him then. Would justice make you feel better about humiliating him? Breaking him?" Two of Kavinsky's fingers tap their way closer to Gansey's hands.

Gansey shoos them away, "You did that all yourself, I'm just trying to protect him. It's messed up hearing all this from the person who _drugged_ and _gang raped_ my friend."

Kavinsky gave him a look that said 'say that a little louder would you?' with just the tilt of his head.

"Look, we were all high that night. None of us were lucid enough to tell if any of us were consenting."

Gansey gawked at him; he would've laughed if he were sure it sounded sane enough. "Lucid enough to film it," Gansey stood, with all the power of a conversation leaving a room, "I'll make sure you _burn_ for this, Joseph."

Kavinsky just sat and smiled "Good one, ha, I like that."

"Oh, Dick," Gansey turned his head a fraction, throwing his coat over his arm.

Kavinsky held a finger to his lips, "Let's not out Ronan."

Gansey never thought he was capable of such anger but here it was churning and bubbling in his gut like an angry cauldron of magma.

He would burn Kavinsky for hurting _him_.

He didn't reply and instead shoved the door open.

Gansey's angry presence seemed to have kept all of Nino's quiet, the lively atmosphere only seemed to pick up once he had driven away in his car.

Kavinsky dialed a number into his phone from memory, "Ronan, I got some crazy new shit you'd love."

 

"K, maybe not tonight."

 

 

Gansey sat in his car. He had just driven faster than he ever hoped to on Henrietta roads only to end up back at Monmouth.

He felt like screaming.

He felt like waking up Ronan and taking him to the Barns. Declan be damned.

He felt like waking up Ronan and taking him to England.

Far, far, away from Kavinsky's grasping hands and gaping mouth.

He felt like his skin was burning up, alight and itching.

He could burn down Kavinsky's house.

The consequences?

Nothing his family's connections couldn't get him out of.

He could- he could _kill him._

The thought startled him.

He could think sensibly for once.

Gansey punched the dashboard, and understood why Ronan had done it so frequently.

He wound his hair in between his fingers, pulling.

He thought back to Kavinsky's shit eating smile.

He was going to devour his friend.

Use him up till he was broken and empty, and then find something else to play with.

He had no idea what he'd done.

How many lives had he destroyed with his drugs? With his 'fuck the police' attitude and his indestructible skin he could walk away from anything.

Not Ronan. Not Ronan.

Dear god, not Ronan.

 

When he walked into Monmouth, it was dark. He could vaguely make out the outline of his bed in the blue white streetlight shed in by the windows.

He ran a hand down his face, dropping his keys onto a stack of books.

Gansey quietly cleared his throat.

"Noah?"

No reply.

Gansey waited a few moments, pacing farther into the room until he crumpled.

He sat on his bed with his face in his hands.

He shoulders shook as he felt a wave of it hit him.

He shamelessly allowed himself heaving sobs to wrack his body, and his strangled inhales to be audible in his breath.

He came close to calming himself down but then he laughed to himself and it unleveled his breath throwing him into another fit, struggling to just breathe.

He considered finding his inhaler and sedatives, considered letting those things help him escape the crushing guilt and gravity of his panic.

Then he considered the distance from his bed to his desk.

Gansey was too busy trying to count his breaths that he jumped when two warm hands slid onto his shoulders from his back. He felt the bed tip back under the weight of Ronan.

Gansey coughed into his fist, "I thought you were at Joseph's party."

He abrasively rubbed his face, but he knew it was futile. Ronan was here the whole time.

In the light, Ronan glowed. He was naked from the waist up, his washed out skin made him look ethereal, ghostly. Gansey could barely recall the healthy glow and smile he'd seen before they'd started talking, before Niall died.

He didn't answer.

And when he leaned forward and spoke into Gansey's ear, he thought he smelled like sex and smoke. "What's wrong?" Gansey blinked tears out of his eyes.

He wrapped his arms around Gansey's broad chest, and when he pressed his cheek to Gansey's Ronan could feel the wetness against his skin.

Tears shed for him, but he didn't know that.

Gansey would've laughed again, out of sheer ridiculousness but he knew better. So instead he turned around and tucked his head under Ronan's chin, and sighed deeply.

It was choppy but at least he could breathe now.

"I-I can't-" his voice cracked and Gansey couldn't help it, he turned his face to muffle the broken sound of his breaths into Ronan's shirt, and when he pulled back it was wet. Gansey's cheeks were red.

"It'll be okay." Ronan consoled and right then Gansey felt a burst of hysteria because of course it wouldn't be. _Don't you understand? I can't help you Ronan._

But Ronan had decided it was Gansey's turn to fall asleep to Ronan's traveling traces and Celtic humming.

 

When Gansey woke, it was still dark, and he looked up to Ronan as they both lay on their backs. Ronan had a hand in Gansey's hair, stroking his head gently from time to time. When Ronan looked down and saw Gansey's open eyes staring back at him, his hand stilled.

"I need to tell you something."

Gansey, who was not yet out of sleep, squinted at Ronan and propped his head up.

"What is it?"


	6. Fragments

"Well, like," he scratches his neck, a habit of touching the hair at the base of his skull when nervous. Gansey's eyes follow the movement and he distantly registers that he's going to have to shave it soon before forcing himself to look away.

"I keep having weird dreams about Kavinsky."

Gansey's voice constricts and he hoped that it came across as normal, "Like sex dreams?" 

 _Shitshitshitshit,_ he zones out,  _Was that too forward? Too obvious? That was too obvious._ But before Gansey can spiral further into internal monologue of panic, Ronan shifts onto his back.

He nods, honest as always, "Mm, but weirder."

"Weirder?" Gansey hopes he doesn't notice the higher octave.

"It feels like a- and it's bad, like- I don't know." Ronan huffs.

"I-", for once Gansey decides not to press.

Ronan looks insulted, his head jerks back to squint at Gansey.

"Ah, nothing."

"What? Spit it out."

Gansey felt a little relieved that his words had their usual edge to them. But he remained silent and could only give a small helpless shrug. Ronan's squint turns into a pointed glare and he shakes his head, sighing.

"You just made it weird. I feel weird now."

Ronan burrows into Gansey's duvet and shoves his head under a pile of pillows. Gansey smiles dimly. Ronan held a marvelous talent that only Gansey knew of, and that was his ability to go from ethereal ghost to large bird in minutes. The scene reminded him of an ostrich with its head in the ground.

"I just forgot what I was going to say."

 

* * *

 

The next morning, the space next to Gansey was cold. When he knocked on Ronan's door there was no answer. 

He drove to school in silence, and listened to the thunder of the Pig.

 

When he arrived in Economics in the afternoon he didn't expect to see Ronan. In similar mornings he observed Ronan's absence and filed it in the back of his mind as something to consider or worry over later. In Latin, when his seat was vacant, Gansey tried not to think about it. He had conjugations to do and Adam Parrish to stare at. 

So when he stood in the doorway of the classroom and his gaze fell upon the occupied seat beside his spot he was surprised for two reasons. Ronan was in Economics and Ronan was wearing bruises and marks upon his skin that weren't there the night before. 

Ronan looked washed out, maybe it was the faded shirt and light jeans but maybe it was also the ashen face and unfocused eyes with bags under one and bruises under another. His skin, which usually shone like something it was alive, trashing and could never break, was underlying gray. He looked like a corpse.

Gansey's stomach dropped with something that was the same species of dread but wilder, when his brain asked him to explain, Gansey could say that the English language failed to provide him for such an emotion as this. He could also blame his parents and, for poetic reasons, the world, for not preparing him for the weight of this feeling. It was like knowing someone was going to die, one way or another, and that it could be because of you didn't realize it till too late. 

And you wouldn't have known it till the opportunity or tragedy passed and then you were also dead.

A name flashed through his mind, bright, sickeningly vivid and with a toxic hatred that Gansey held for few things on this planet.  _Kavinsky._

Gansey prided himself on the fact that he never once acted out his anger physically and never raised his fist to anyone about anything.

He prided himself on maintaining something he considered difficult when so many things deserved his withheld fury and broken knuckles.

He hated Kavinsky because he felt that he was a threat to this unspoken promise to himself, and he underlined that it was the only reason he was angry with that boy. And never specified on why Kavinsky deserved his unpracticed swing.

That hurt to think about and Gansey couldn't afford making room for hurt if he was going to fill himself with Ronan's.

 

Gansey didn't say anything to Ronan.

His eyes had already dropped down to his textbook and Ronan's were awfully vacant.

* * *

Ronan pressed his forehead to the cool tiles, tracing squares between the cold stone. The heat of the steam in the windows, and the stinging, soothing cascade of water on his dilapidated back made his skin ache. The burn had a cleansing quality to it however. A quality that Ronan craved after nights of broken trenches and fiery memories that slipped out of his hands like bottles through out the night. He turned slightly and the water hitting the tiles below him made a different sound. He jerked, suddenly in pain, pulling his arm out from under the water stream. He cursed eloquently as it slipped from his mouth with very little emotion. Twisting the skin of his arm, he eyed a patch the size of a dime above an artery in his inner arm. The epidermis directly over the vein was patterned with tiny, still-bleeding punctures.

Funny.

He only remembered pill popping but wouldn't be surprised if he took up something else.

He wouldn't but-

He'd know if he were on heroin.

_Something else._

Ronan loved the feeling of staying up 2 days or longer in a row, or dropping into a sleep deeper than death. Anything he could do to abate the nightmares and seething claws for another night.

Yet his skin still crept with what his uninhibited, drunken mind had done without his sober judgment.

_Sober judgment._

'To hell with that,' Kavinsky had said before squeezing another pill into Ronan's hand, Ronan had looked up then but Kavinsky's head was already tossed back with five silver blue capsules sliding down his throat. Then there was no point in talking to him.

Ronan rolled the pills over in his hand, careful not to drop them into the grate below them. They felt cool to the touch, and their contents almost glittery in color. When he looked over to where Kavinsky had laid down, his arms were spread and he was very still.

Leaning over him, he saw his pupils blown wide and reflected in them were the stars above the warehouse. Skov and Swan were a couple feet away feeling the same weight and wonder in their limbs as Kavinsky.

Then his eyes slowly dragged away from the infinite sky to look Ronan dead in the eye and in the gentlest voice he ever heard from is mouth, whisper a single word.

"Cabeswater."

Ronan had no idea what that meant. It was like smelling something that evoked memories you had forgotten and the most frustrating feeling was trying to figure out if you dreamt the whole thing.

It was an ironic experience for Ronan.

But when Ronan looked at Kavinsky, all the adrenaline and threat drained out of his limbs, with eyes blown wide like he'd seen more than just the stars that night.

The only question Ronan thought to ask then was, 'Where'd he get these?'

But now, the pounding headache, the black void where memories should be- the pills weren't worth it. More infuriating than Joseph's failure to comply with his promise, 'you'll never feel shitty after taking my pills', was the fact that his body ached all over and the frustrating blank space of memories. He couldn't even remember if it was worth it.

And if that wasn't enough, Gansey was in a mood. More so, it was a silent mood. Which meant that he wasn't talking to Ronan. Gansey enjoyed or constantly resorted to quietly simmering in dead silence filled with tense movements like drying the dishes and making them echo in the warehouse, painfully squeaky ceramic reminders of the words unshared between them.

Noah was barely ever there anymore, the school was picking up in its play production and he was drifting with that crowd for the time being.

Ronan tried to breathe and let the steam smoke out the acidic pit of anger that was sitting in his bones. It wasn't even directed at Gansey. Maybe it was Kavinsky. He just felt on edge.

He'd just come back from Kavinsky's place, that was obvious and he wasn't hiding it. He'd stalked over to Gansey's bed, waited for him to say something but instead just lay on the bed next to him and pretended to sleep. Gansey was typing on his laptop, hair mused, and glasses tilted. The only thing he said was, "Go shower," when Ronan attempted to move under the covers.

It's what he usually says to Ronan.

He knows this. So why did his words sting like rejection? Ronan shakes his head and tells himself to get over himself. Sums to up to a cross faded hangover and agrees to go with that.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going for like a third person POV? But I'm not sure if I'm writing the perspectives as fluidly as they could be. uh,,, yeah so let me know if it's confusing, etc which parts, and I'll try to write it out.


	7. Mustard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning:  
> \- vague suggestions of dub-con  
> \- nudity(?)  
> \- a couple of nerds  
> \- dick puns  
> \- mustard

Ronan flicked water from his eyes and reached for the towels they -Gansey- kept folded on top of the refrigerator. When he brought the fabric to his face, he got a nose full of the smell of Gansey's light cologne and incense. The incense he lit by his mint plants on Sunday mornings when he'd sit early in the morning, where he'd keep the windows open to let the first light of the day touch the leaves.

He'd just be drinking his fucking tea, reading his dumb books, just looking like a dick but the way the sun lit his face. With the shadow of his spectacles dancing across his cheekbones-

It made Ronan want to hold his face in his hands. Do something  _horrible_ , like _kiss_  him, then throw the nearest possible projectile and jump off a cliff. Preferably in that order. 

He let himself be comforted by the familiar scents as he patted down his face before feeling oddly disgusted with himself after seeing the same puncture marks on his arms and bruises on his thighs. Opting instead to angrily towel himself dry with enough vigor to make the even the plush material and luxurious fiber count feel harsh on his skin.

Ronan thought about the sight he saw this morning, Gansey waiting in Monmouth in his tussled sheets like a king in a throne. Drowsy and worn but somehow so regal, a pissbaby of a Camaro owner.

And he was giving Ronan the cold shoulder. Worse, Ronan knew he deserved it.

He punched the fridge.

Something, _possibly_ ceramic, _possibly_ glass, toppled and _possibly_ broke.

 _Oh fuck, if that was one of Gansey's mugs_ -

" _Ronan_."  The seemingly weary and ancient sigh he heard from the direction of the living room confirmed that his fate had been sealed. 

"That wasn't me-", Ronan hurriedly wrapped his towel around his waist and forced the fridge door open, first thinking to hide the evidence by tossing it out the bathroom window. None of Gansey's stupid tea that he was cold steeping was spilled but this bottle of piss colored organic Dijon mustard had broken against a jar of psychedelic honey, which Noah had been hammered when he bought off eBay, and fuck there's a mess-

"Ronan, if that was the tea that Helen sent- oh."

Ronan jolted, caught in the process of trying to scoop mustard from the shelf while holding the broken jar between his arm and chest. He looked up at Gansey, strangely startled like the bubbling adrenaline of getting in trouble when he was a child. "No tea was broken," he rushes when he sees Gansey's startled expression.

Gansey didn't reply or saying anything to at least make Ronan think he heard him. It took him a bewildering moment to realize that his chest and arms were bare, in all their bruised and sickly glory, then a moment longer to realize that his towel was no longer around his waist.

But Gansey wasn't staring at the evidence of mal doings and harm onto his body, the bruises around his hips and collarbones.

" _Fuckin',_  jus-just--" Ronan gestured away from himself angrily with the mustard hand and scrambled to grab the towel to cover himself, his entire body felt hot despite leaving the shower and standing in the cool of the refrigerator for a good few minutes. He made a noise of indignation that was a little too close to a whine. Gansey graciously looked away, although wanting to assess the damage.

Ronan tried to tie the towel more securely around his waist but was only managing to rub Dijon into his waistline at most.

Gansey ran one hand through his loose hair, coiffing it up unintentionally with the remnants of gel from having had fallen asleep at his desk yesterday. He looked a little less intimidatingly perfect and a little more ridiculous which Ronan appreciated. As he now knew from experience that having to face someone after showering, bare ass covered in mustard, makes someone feel surprisingly vulnerable.

On top of the embarrassment  _about_  his embarrassment, he hoped that his parlor hid the flush his mother adored when he was younger, with skin that was healthy and resembled his mother's.  _Don't be shy, duckling._

He might've winced unconsciously at the memory because something spurred Gansey out of his ' _just saw Ronan Lynch covered in mustard with his dick out'_  stupor.

"I-I am- my apologies, I didn't notice I was-," he paused, "Are you okay?" He tilted his head, eye brows drawn together in concern and hesitancy although his actions did not show that. He stepped closer, hands on Ronan's waist to turn him, worry eclipsing his awkwardness. Ronan wanted to kick himself because this really was the worst time for Gansey's sudden forceful manhandling. Gansey went to grab the jar from his side, thinking that Ronan had cut himself on broken glass. His touch on Ronan's ribs made Ronan even more tragically aware of the fact that he was bare in this moment.

" _Ah--_ fuck," he hissed and Gansey's hand pulled back, "I'm fine, just!" He made a rushed shooing motion and when met with Gansey's confused and imploring gaze, he smacked his forehead. With the mustard hand. 

"Shit,  _fuckonthequeensgrave_ \- it burns." 

He tried to wipe the mess from getting into his eyes.

"God, you're getting it in your eyes." Gansey despaired.

"Deadass," Noah said, "only you two could get up to- _this._ " He gestured at the two of them.

In the midst of Ronan's blindness, Noah had stumbled down the hallway and nudged the open door open further. He observed Gansey hovering and Ronan cursing from the doorway for a moment. Eyes bleary with sleep and hair unkempt, he merely squinted at them before retrieving his toothbrush from their shared dinosaur holder and going about his business. It was now that Noah actually looked at the scene and slurred 'fuckin' mess' into the sink when he spat. Later, Noah would recount this moment to others as, "So Ronan's like,  _'I'm standing there, dick out, mustard sauce on both of my tiddies_ -'"

Gansey's tone and flustered expression changed when his eyes snapped up to Ronan's top half, " _What?_ How-- _how_? How did you even manage to get that much all over you?" He reprimanded, incredulous. "Ronan, you're getting mustard on my towel." 

 _Shit,_ Ronan froze, _he noticed._

Ronan felt mildly dizzied, but couldn't tell if it was the ridiculous flush or from the rush of  _fond_  from the sudden coin toss flip of Gansey's Parenting Mode.

"It's _your_  jar of cat piss,  _who even needs_  that much?"

Gansey ignores him.

"You left for _ten minutes_ -", he stepped forward. The stuttering and unsure version of him had gone so quickly Ronan could've sworn his self-gratifying imagination made it up. He moved deliberately with intention, and ignored Ronan's floundering when he grabbed the towel from him and used it to wipe the fridge and the jar he managed to loosen from Ronan's side.

Ronan reluctantly sat on the toilet seat while Gansey tilted his head back and washed his eyes.

As much as Ronan would have loved to shove Gansey out or storm out and back to his room, he wasn't risking it after the October ' _Rat Fiesta_ ' which was exactly what it sounds like. They began calling it the ' _Rat Fiesta'_ incident after Noah coined the term and Ronan went along with it to Gansey's distress. ' _Dirty rodent_ ' also became a popular phrase thrown around Monmouth. 

This was not remotely the first time the boys of Monmouth had seen each other stark naked, which is what made Ronan so much more pained at his reaction while he quietly simmered in reflection as they wordlessly cleaned the bathroom of traces of Ronan being there.

With few choices, the ordeal he was going through while Gansey cleaned him up was an inner monologue of suffering.

  

At the sight of the stained towel kicked into the corner by the hamper Ronan absently remembered waking up to the smell of fire, running downstairs as the sun just barely rose over the fields, and looking out the window to see his mother burning her clothes, their clothes, after she couldn't get the blood stains out. 

 

Gansey broke him out of it, standing between his legs with a wet towel, he had long finished wiping down traces of Ronan's ridiculousness.

 

Ronan knew that Gansey was now well aware of the damage on his body, the use.

He felt naked and dirtied with something that tasted like acid in his mouth, something he'd come to known well in worship, a reverent kind of shame. Ronan refused to meet his gaze, instead listened to methodical echo of water dripping in the shower and focused on abusing the skin around his fingernails.

But when Gansey's hands gently guided his arms for him to inspect, to turn his head and bare the colored expanse of his neck, he let him, wordlessly obedient. 

Ronan didn't notice the tension leave his body slowly, as they both fell into a routine. Their time, reserved for quiet nights at odd hours and the early dawn when the pain woke him and his search for painkillers woke Gansey.

The comfortable silence between them was something that Ronan wanted to sink into, get lost in. It was in these soft hours, painted in glowing light, that he allowed himself to enjoy the reserved but pragmatic touches of his best friend.

Gansey did not touch him like he was afraid of breaking him, the familiarity that came through in his actions grounded Ronan and helped the feeling come back into his numb body after nights when he tried to feel nothing.

Gansey always did this thing where he'd make a noise under his breath and tap his finger softly against skin where he'd identify something that deserved his attention, Ronan always counted when he did, adding up the numbers and the damage. How long he'd have this. 

Gansey hadn't touched his thighs or the angry claw marks on his hips. Ronan felt a mix of relief and the shame burned across his skin. Gansey also hadn't remarked on how Ronan was wearing baggier clothes, the warm sweaters that he owned by would never wear in Henrietta's heat.

He'd counted seven before Gansey stood and quickly rummaged in the cabinet above the washers for their first aid kit that grew into a collection that eventually needed to be stored in a tool box sized tackle box. It's what Noah called their "Boyscout Wet Dream Kit," which Gansey quickly opted to veto. Gansey brought it down and pulled a stool up to where Ronan sat. He put the box on the bathroom counter and shuffled through the pop out drawers for antiseptic wipes. Ronan eyed the box where it sat in the corner of his vision and snorted. 

_"Fuck- every time."_

Gansey gagged, trying to muffle his laughter as his serious façade cracked at Ronan's words. "Yeah," he agreed, "Our resident artist, he's got- a gift."

"Truly," Ronan agreed.

The once white exterior had, on all the space around the sharpied and asymmetrical red cross on the front, been covered with tiny stick figure drawings of incidents where the three of them were present. The empty spots in between were littered with stickers that Noah had saved from all his doctor visits as a kid and the daycare job he did over the summer when his sister was sick. It was hard to maintain the sombre mood when Gansey broke out the bedazzled and sparkly storage container that had Thomas the Train saying 'good job!' in French and similarly themed ones with Nemo the bald astronaut from Toy Story.

There were everything from plastic sutures, tiny bandaids, gauze and wrap, to water proof adhesive sealed bandages that could wrap around and cover Ronan's entire knee. Unfortunately for Ronan, the inside was not uncontaminated. In between those were the Bob the Builder, Mutant Ninja Turtles and -Noah's favorite- Ben 10 assorted gaudy multicolored bandaids. There were likely others but Ronan kept himself from looking, lest he prompt Gansey to throw a ' _bandage party_ ' and cover every single nick and scratch with cartoon characters. He knows that Noah bought large bandaids beyond the little ones that could barely fit around Ronan's knuckle.

Ronan suspected that Gansey used this time to punish Ronan in the most passive aggressive caring way that he could: by making him look like a pack of first graders used him as an art project.

"This is the most I've seen you.." Gansey trailed off and shook his head gently, smiling to himself, "for a while now."

Ronan grunted, "I see your _lame_ ass everyday-"

Gansey sighed loudly and where his hands were on his shoulders he slipped them around and put Ronan in a choke hold. He clicked his tongue, pretending to snap Ronan's neck, and laughing when Ronan went with it and went frighteningly limp under Gansey's hands. But he would not admit that to Ronan.

Gansey thwacked him with the damp wash towel he had squeezed out, "You know what I mean."

Ronan shrugged on the clothes that Noah had likely dropped by the door, "Yeah, yeah."

Something that was definitely not _fondness_ left Ronan feeling warm for the rest of the morning.

* * *

On  _Saturday_ morning, Noah stumbled in around 8am after his "fuck-in-the-ass-o'clock" rehearsals, as Ronan eloquently put it, looking very tired and every bit the glittery zombie he probably felt like.

" _Gnn, kill me-_ " he slurred from the bean bag he took head on immediately after stepping in the door.

Gansey replied, "Take off your shoes."

Ronan, entirely unsympathetic despite the startling similarity of fatigue and distain of consciousness between the theater kid and the chronic of Monmouth, fired back, "That's right, you heathen."

Noah felt popcorn kernels pelt the back of his head.

But was in no state to have a _'tickle tussle'_   with Ronan.

Gansey must've turned and caught Ronan assaulting the back of Noah's head with grains of corn because Noah remembered hearing, " _Ro-NAN_ ," before knocking out.

Gansey was pointing a carrot stick at Ronan like one would a lightsaber, "-do you really want wh-"

" _Rat Fiesta 2.0?"_ Ronan interjected over him.

" _-what_ happened last time?" He finished.

Noah jerked in his sleeping bag at Ronan's words and stuck his head up to see them. They watched as he laughed and finger gunned Ronan before collapsing back into a Broadway induced coma.

" _Yep, he's gonnmf-_ " Ronan said at the same time Gansey shoved the carrot in his mouth.

Ronan bit the entirety around his mouth and Gansey turned back to the kitchen where he was making, likely sub-par, curry.

Ronan took out the chunk and chewed on it, "That was oddly perverted and phallic even for you _Dick._ "

" _Yeah well,_ choke on it then."

Gansey heard a weak laugh that must've been Noah.

"Oh, _die_ already if you're going to."

He didn't have to risk the visual migraine to know that Ronan was throwing food at Noah again.

Ronan cackled at Noah's protests between his mouthful of carrot and began to choke. Gansey went to show the unburned quality of the food in his pan.

But when he turned to gloat and maybe receive finger guns from Noah, what he saw was Ronan thrown over the side of his bed, coughing.

"Ronan?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, a legitimate whole new chapter after like two years of letting this haunt me. uh, it's quite an accomplishment for me as it was one of my new years resolutions to get closure or something on these, write a couple chapters and here I am posting this,  
> I'm kind of cheating cause I think the chapter posts seem a little short but I wrote a lottt for other chapters so hopefully that makes up for it


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